


New York, New York

by dracofiend



Category: White Collar
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 07:43:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracofiend/pseuds/dracofiend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal’s love letter to the city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New York, New York

“Hey.” Peter leaned past the invisible wall of Neal’s desk. “You wanna grab lunch? Falafel sound good?”

Neal finished entering the last of his report. He hit Control S with a decisive flick of the wrist and locked the screen. “Sure,” he replied, looking up at his boss with a grin. He didn’t care for falafel.

Neal pushed out of his chair and swept his jacket from the back. “Ready when you are,” he said, putting it on with a shrug.

The air that met them beyond the revolving glass doors was hot, heavy with moist particulates; wet in the shade of the building’s overhang, boiling in the sun. Cigarette butts on the sidewalk gleamed like white confetti; splotches of old gum sparkled. Another scorcher, the AM radio host had said. No end in sight.

They headed west toward Tribeca, weaving through the daily suits and skirts and skinny heels, stepping around shining pools of yesterday’s thundershowers guttered at the curbs of every crosswalk.

“How’s the search through Ellison’s tax returns going? Found anything that might get us a warrant?” Peter asked as they crossed. Yellow cabs crowded the intersection, their noses almost skimming Neal’s and Peter’s and everyone else’s knees. No one hurried.

“Definitely,” Neal replied. “Or, I will, once I get started.” This got him a look from Peter that had Neal grinning. It was so hot out. “Hey, talk to Jones—he was the one who asked me for help with closing out the reports on the Telford case. Said he needed them ASAP.” They turned a corner and the sun sizzled in his eyes. Neal reached into his inside breast pocket and pulled out his shades.

“I like your style, Caffrey,” Peter said sarcastically. “Throwing your colleagues under the bus. I’ll let it go this time, since I was the one who put Jones under the gun.” At Neal’s _ah,_ Peter gave him a smug eyebrow.

“I like when you pull rank like that,” Neal remarked.

“Yup.” Peter’s sideways nod had the crook of his mouth sliding into Neal’s view. Neal forced his foot to slow, to stagger their strides, and let himself look through his sunglasses for one second more. It was hot. They walked into the shadow of a skyscraper and Neal glanced away. He took off the glasses and looked forward, down the concrete length studded with storefronts and office workers mixed with tourists.

“Did you watch the game last night?” Neal offered. He tilted his head to catch Peter’s face widen happily. Sweat was forming at the small of Neal’s back, at the back of his neck.

“I sure did. Mets won it, 10-7. It was a pretty decent game.”

Neal nodded, smiled, willed himself not to dampen his button-up shirt. He listened to Peter’s play by play, his eyes passing idly over the round metal grates sending up filmy fingers of steam, the pretzel carts and shwarma carts and falafel carts, which Peter never ate at, because, he told Neal once, _A man’s gotta have standards._ All the while he absorbed the pitch and roll of Peter’s voice, and fought to breathe through the heat and the thud of his heart, the thick press of airlessness coning his chest, and by the end Neal could almost believe he cared, deeply, about Harvey’s seven inning no-hitter and Timmon’s ninth inning home run.

They drew up to a tiny place on Church Street with a faded green awning, sandwiched between a Subway and its distinctive baked bread smell and the peeling gray paint of the entrance to the apartments overhead. Flat brown brick and dripping A/C units loomed from above. Peter went in eagerly, opening the door with a jingle to join the muggy press of bodies inside. He wasn’t the only one who turned his nose up at cart falafel.

Neal didn’t follow him in, and as Peter held open the door expectantly, a couple of people squeezed out. The door swung shut again, jingling, and when the suits cleared, Peter was in line, looking back with eyes that said, _What are you doing?_

Neal flashed his teeth and held up a finger. He turned partly aside and began removing his jacket. He looked over for Peter’s reaction, then bit back a laugh. A few people had joined the line behind Peter now—Neal knew he wouldn’t leave his place. Neal popped a cuff, slowly, and carefully rolled up his sleeve to the elbow. He smoothed the cuff there, making sure the crease was even all the way around. He unfastened the other cuff next, working the sleeve up with deliberation, tucking the stiff fabric into a neat curve against his elbow. He glanced through the glass door, blurry with handprints. Peter’s mouth was slightly open. He shut it and shook his head. _Get in here,_ Peter’s face said. Neal grinned, keeping his eyes locked on Peter’s, and reached up to loosen his tie.

The lady behind Peter nudged him—Neal watched Peter startle, half-turn, apologize, step forward. Neal undid the top two buttons at his collar and pushed his way into the falafel shop, the skin along his bare forearms prickling, the metal of the door handle hot to the touch.

Back outside, plastic bags in hand, Peter threw Neal a vaguely disapproving look. “Neal Caffrey—the only guy in the world who has to make an entrance into Mohamed’s Falafel Palace.”

“What are you talking about?” Neal protested. “We’re in the middle of a heat wave here—hasn’t your tie gotten the memo yet?” He gave the flapping edge of Peter’s blazer a light tug. “C’mon. It’s like 700 degrees right now. This isn’t right.”

Peter jutted a brow—a gust of hot, sewage-laden air blew over them. He frowned, then sighed. “No, it’s not. Hold my falafel?”

Neal grinned. “Any time, Peter.”

Peter looked visibly relieved once his jacket was over his arm. “Thanks,” he said, reaching for his bag.

“What, you’re leaving the tie alone?” Neal prompted as they paused at an intersection. Peter looked down the street. No cars coming. They crossed against the light, and the small herd with them did the same.

“Don’t push it,” Peter answered, raising his voice over the abrupt sounding of an irritated taxi horn. Just one long, uninterrupted span of seven seconds, pure beep—until traffic started flowing again. They took Duane Street unhurriedly, falafels swinging gently at their sides. “How was the MoMA exhibit? Le Corbusier?”

Neal looked up quickly, surprised and pleased. Peter had pronounced it perfectly.

“Gorgeous,” he said. “It was gorgeous. The guest curator did an incredible job with it—Jean Louis Cohen, he’s a professor at NYU. He said he tried to develop ideas of memory and urban landscape in selecting the models, drawings, paintings, photos, and furniture in the show.”

“And furniture, huh?” Peter murmured. “I’m guessing there’s nothing from Ikea.”

“Uh, no. Le Corbusier was, as I’m sure you know,” Neal said only half-snidely, “an architect, painter, sculptor, writer, furniture designer, photographer, just to name a few.”

“Huh,” Peter said. “So, just a regular guy. What’s MoMA want with him?”

Neal looked at Peter a moment. “Anyway, seeing these different pieces of his together in one exhibition, arranged around the theme of the relationship between architecture and landscape—you just get this amazingly intimate sense of how he viewed not just the forms of buildings, but the space around them. The gardens, the horizons, the reactions and changes in these spaces that flow from advancements in technology—”

“Uh huh,” Peter nodded. His hand crept up to his tie. Neal felt his mouth twisting upward as he watched Peter’s fingers pry at the knot. He couldn’t resist. Too hot, too hot, with all this molten sunshine pouring down. It struck the gold of Peter’s wedding band—the glint was sharp, lightning in Neal’s eye. Neal blinked, saw the jagged flash of it in his eyelids, and angled his head away as Peter’s tie unclenched. He held his gaze to the skyline; at his periphery Peter’s elbow shifted as Peter took down the buttons pinioning his collar shut. The skin there would be damp, Neal thought—he’d feel the heated breeze brush past and it would seem cool. Neal didn’t look. The midsummer sun burned, setting the city into contrast—bright sky, dark buildings. Everything as clear as could be.

Neal’s eyes followed the familiar rise of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building. Jacob Koppel Javits, state attorney general, member of the House of Representatives and the Senate, champion of the National Endowment for the Arts. Neal had looked it up once, soon after he’d been given a desk in the building. Its edges were clean, straight, stretching infinitely upward, striping black against white, one among the forest of glass and steel of Lower Manhattan.

“What?” Peter asked. He stopped outside the revolving doors, shuffled closer to Neal, and craned his neck up. “See something?”

Neal caught the scent of Peter’s after shave, the falafels, car exhaust and cigarette smoke. “Nah. Just admiring the view.”

They headed into the cold anti-septic air of the lobby, passed through the metal detector, nodded hellos to security, swiped past the turnstiles. “Watch out, or folks’ll think you’re a tourist,” Peter cautioned with a smile. They walked toward the courtyard, an oasis for smokers and lunchers alike.

“What can I say?” Neal shrugged. He felt Peter’s smile, nearer than it was. “I love this city.” It was a throwaway line, meant to charm and appease. It came out too quietly, as he met Peter’s glance.

Peter dipped his chin. “Nothing wrong with that.”

No, Neal thought. There’s nothing wrong with that. He followed Peter to the courtyard, where all the metal chairs and tables were taken, so they sat at the edge of a giant planter next to some pigeons and a girl texting rapidly on her phone, and they unwrapped their falafels and ate them in the shadows of the building’s tall walls, and when they were done they threw away their plastic bags and went back inside, up the elevator, and back to work. Neal re-settled at his desk, watched as Peter ascended the steps to his office. He knew he couldn’t be anywhere other than here.


End file.
